Social media has effected how corporations behave. For example, the way it has cajoled (or in some cases coerced) big businesses into acting like nice people instead of faceless, corporate entities. What choice do they have? With everyone and their brother potential whistleblowers it is no longer feasible for corporations to maintain a façade. It’s too easy for the world to see inside. And if the inside of a company does not match its outsides (i.e. marketing image) this creates a level of conflict potentially ruinous to the firm.

Yet, big companies are reluctant to let go of old ideas. It’s not in their conservative natures. Especially when it comes to public relations. Transparency is uncomfortable. Businesses do not want to reveal their proprietary secrets –the Secret Sauce! Nor do they want internal debate and/or dysfunction made public, i.e. a bumbling CEO or battling board of directors.

While publicity and success go hand in hand, exposure makes everyone nervous. The word itself implies vulnerability, like ants under a magnifying glass. But once firms accept the two-way glass much good can come of it. For them and for the communities they reside in. For example, fast food marketers own up to their unhealthy menus and begin providing nutritious alternatives. Whether they want to or not. In reality, these good-for-you items have, in many cases, become highly profitable: a win-win for all parties.

Another example comes from corporate giant, Kraft Foods. Perhaps feeling internal and external pressures, some years ago the company began embracing social causes, in particular those aimed at reducing hunger. Now Kraft spends countless millions of dollars on behalf of Feed The World and other such organizations. McDonald’s wages campaigns against child obesity. As David Jones (Global CEO, Havas) points out in his recent book, “those that do the most good win.”

Indeed, “doing good” is now a corporate mantra. For obvious reasons, marketers are compelled to talk about their good deeds. While it does shroud altruism in a self-serving aura, so what? The deeds are getting done. Heightened social conscience of corporations is a good thing. A great thing! But it might not have occurred –certainly not as quickly- without the relentless “peer pressure” that social media brings to the equation.

Author’s Note: This post was taken from content I’d written earlier.

I won’t lie. Today was not a banner day at the office. I’ve been struggling with a couple super tough briefs. (I guess that’s why they call it work.) I’ve no doubt we’ll crack it. I have never missed turning in a homework assignment and I’m not about to now. But until I do: pain.

My workload has necessarily interfered with my ability to create a fresh post for this blog. That is rare for me. I beg your pardon.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially frustrated I make a gratitude list. I know it sounds corny but it really works. In times of stress I can forget how good I’ve got it: a healthy family that loves me, a good job in a fantastic city, a clear head and fit body and on and on. So many blessings! I feel better already. You should try it.

On that note, last week I rode my bicycle to work. I live in Mill Valley, which is about 15 miles from my office in San Francisco. The trip isn’t easy but it’s well worth the effort. The hilly ride comprises some of the most breathtaking (literally) scenery in the world. Coming home that evening I stopped along the iconic Golden Gate bridge and took these photographs.

And so how can I not feel like the luckiest man in the world?

The unbelievable view (No Instagram necessary!)

No place like (this) home!

“Dead Giveaway” Auto Tune of Charles Ramsey

As horrifying details continue to unfold regarding Amanda Berry’s abduction by lowlife, Ariel Castro many of us are also laughing our asses off at the Auto Tune version of rescuer, Charles Ramsey’s now famous interview with a local reporter. For those unawares, Ramsey is the charismatic black man who helped rescue Amanda from the house where she and two other girls (now women) had been held captive, raped and abused for ten years. (PS: I mention Ramsey’s race because, well, he brings it up in one of his interview’s more entertaining moments.)

While the content Ramsey told the reporter was understandably dramatic, his accounting of it was also sensational ripe with provocative statements, great delivery and killer sound bites. The man is a natural. No one should be surprised to see him on Letterman or touting McDonald’s (a brand he name-drops numerous times during the interview). Straight up, the video is highly compelling. When converted to Auto Tune by nefarious online maestros it’s freaking hilarious. No way around it, the aptly titled song, Dead Giveaway created from interview footage is super entertaining. Frankly, I found it better arranged and cleverer than a fair amount of legitimate popular music. But that’s another story…

My wonderment is about creating content like this at all (much less being entertained by it) given the terrifying and extremely current circumstances. What are we to make of that? And it’s not just snarky young men finding amusement here. In my office even women were guffawing to the video. I would have thought rape and torture off limits for them.

So much for “too soon” even being a question. The parody song came out within 24 hours of the interview. I remember after 9/11 our nation required a fair amount of time before any sort of entertainment related to those events could be appreciated let alone made. Hell, comedy in general was put on hold for a period.

That was then. Online pranksters have multiplied like algae in the last 15 years. From the high-end producers (Funny or Die) to the entities making videos such as this one, it has become impossible to allow a grace period or time of mourning for anything at all. Assassinations. Terrorism. Rape. Suicide. Subject doesn’t matter and likely never will again. Competition for eyeballs is too fierce. If you don’t do the bit someone else will. And it will get shared and liked and followed until even your grandmother in Topeka has seen it.

That’s the world we live in. Have a nice day.

I wrote the above copy for Altoids in 1997. A year or so before, Mark Faulkner (art director) and I created the “Curiously Strong Mints” campaign for Altoids. The two of us would run this creatively driven account for about 7 years, producing myriad posters, print, ambient and digital pieces.

The campaign exploded into popular culture. Sales boomed. Within a couple years, Altoids became the number one selling mint in North America. Later, in a parlay with Life Savers candy, Kraft sold the brand to Wrigley for over 1.5 billion dollars. Pretty sweet, especially for a confection that wallowed in obscurity for over a century.

Those ads were game changers: for the client, for the agency, and thankfully for yours truly. Mark and I (plus a growing and talented team) would go on to win tons of creative awards for our work, including, in 1997, the $100,000 Grand Kelly Award for best print campaign in North America. Which, fortuitously, brings us back to the above execution: “Makes Other Mints Feel Inadequate.”

Imagine my surprise discovering it in the latest issue of People magazine! Holy crap. After all these years and all that history, they’re rerunning our ad. The headline. The typography. The color scheme. Save for a different (and in my opinion) crappier looking tin, it’s the same exact ad.

I’m baaaaaack… as seen in People, May 2013

Big deal? Well, sort of. For whatever reasons, rerunning old advertising is unprecedented. Creative has a super short lifespan. Like cicadas, campaigns appear, create buzz, and then die. Precious few last longer than their first flight. Once gone, even the most successful ad campaigns stay that way. Yes, taglines or other assets get resurrected all the time. But never the ad itself.

Until this one.

What can I say? Of course I’m flattered. But seeing my ad after all these years is also discombobulating. Like running into your ex and her new beau. Altoids was and is so personal to me. I still remember pitching the above headline to my client. In fact, I recall telling them Altoids’ smart and cynical audience would appreciate a quirky word like “inadequate.” The subtle innuendo was highly intended. (As the brand grew, its widening audience would appreciate much sillier copy. But my favorite pieces always remained true to that “smart and cynical” core.)

So, having perhaps lost its way, is Altoids’ advertising returning to its base? Literally. Look, I don’t blame agency and client for rerunning our copy. There’s a whole new generation of “smart and cynical” out there. It’ll be new to them.

Special note: I discovered a website devoted entirely to Altoids advertising. In it, you’ll find “Inadequate” along with all the others, far as I can tell, pretty much in the order we produced them. I have no idea who hosts this site or why. Pretty cool, though.

For an internal agency thought piece, I was asked to provide words of wisdom to me as a 22 year-old, just starting out in Adland. Others in gyro management were asked to do the same. These pearls would then be circulated throughout the network. Mostly just for fun.

But lessons are lessons and this seemed as good as way as any to give and receive them. As part of the exercise we were also asked to dig up photographs of ourselves from that time period. This is harder than you might think, especially if you, like me, were 22 before the advent of digital photography. It’s amazing how few photos I have of myself as a young man. I found the above winner and reluctantly submit it for your amusement.

Therefore, my first piece of advice: take more selfies! Kidding. Besides, I know you’re doing that anyway. So, other than telling my 22-year old self to buy gold coins and stock in Apple what would I suggest?

First thing: Be curious. Do not shirk learning in favor of seeking pleasure. Better said, seek pleasure from learning. Then, figure out what you’re good at and become really good at it. You might not achieve greatness but you won’t suck either. Thankfully, despite my careening ambition I carried my childhood love of learning into adulthood. I also chose writing as a “path” and, despite all manner of distractions, never stopped doing it.

The harder question: What new advice would I tell my younger self?

For starters, I’d tell me not to be so uncomfortable not knowing something. “I don’t know” is a perfectly good answer, especially if it’s the truth. As a young man, I thought I knew so much… that I was hard wired for being right. I was wrong. Curiosity is a great virtue. By definition that means having questions. Not answers. Amazing how long it took me to figure that out. So, to all the 22 year old creatives out there (and anyone really) my biggest piece of advice is to ask bigger questions.

Old me enjoying a cigar…

Here’s another. Stick with the winners. At work (or anywhere) seek out people who have a gift, be it a skill you covet or even a big heart or both. Chances are they will not be unwilling to share.

This may come off as superficial but a great piece of advice I’d give my younger self is to dress better. Unless you’re Mark Zuckerberg, wearing sweatshirts and faded jeans every damn day is not a key to success. Working in a creative department has always meant come as you please but I bet I would have been taken more seriously and sold more work if I would have looked a bit more put together. Probably would have had more dates, too.

Finally, I wish my younger self had been nicer. Like a lot of twenty-somethings in advertising (then and now) I was, at times, a sarcastic and overly competitive SOB. So unnecessary. Begrudging my fellows to get ahead was foolish at best and likely a detriment. Working at a big agency, as I did, created tribes. We often competed on briefs. I’m all for healthy competition but I could have done without the snarkiness.

Alas, I doubt I would have listened to older and wiser me. Some things must come the hard way. Karma is real.

I have not watched a single episode of Mad Men this year. Last few seasons I watched every one. I wrote about them on my blog. I Tweeted. I shared.

Why no interest this year? Maybe I’m too busy –a new home, a new job. But I had those things last year and they were even newer. Besides, the show is on Sunday night. With DVR and Internet, I could watch it whenever I want, anyway. That’s how I found time for The Walking Dead and Party Down.

Too busy is not the reason.

Frankly, I think it’s because I don’t care anymore. Better said, I lost interest. I moved on. Moreover, I have a hunch a lot of other people did too. I don’t know the ratings. But I’m willing to bet they are down. Maybe even way down.

What causes that? I wonder if there’s a psychological reason. I wonder if it’s a marker for something in the zeitgeist. Could it be the anti-hero as portrayed by Don Draper is fading from fashion in popular culture?

It’s possible we’ve had enough of melancholy and dubious motives. Are we over the beautiful downer? The Zenith may have been Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight.

So dark…

After considering that character, to say nothing of Heath Ledger’s Joker, what comes after? And so Batman has given way to a rowdier bunch of heroes. Thor, Captain America and Iron Man are ambivalent studs but their moral compasses are a lot more aligned than Batman’s or Don draper’s. I suppose Tony Stark has some issues but still…

My hunch are shows like Dexter, Breaking Bad and Mad Men have run their course. We may be entering a period where we want more ‘together’ heroes. Let the bad guys be riddled with doubt and pain.

It will be interesting, then, so see how the latest installment of Superman fares, Man of Steel. Director, Zach Snyder recently was quoted saying “Superman must be taken seriously.” Maybe so… Having seen only the trailers, I think Clark Kent won’t be vexed by the dark side; rather I think his problem will be hiding his super powers in a world that desperately needs them.

So steely…

That’s a very different dilemma than Don Draper’s. The titular ad man wants to be a better person but keeps slipping. While I most certainly can relate I’m just not in the mood for it right now. Are you?

What’s more unsettling? That a car commercial for Hyundai makes a commercial extolling clean emissions by depicting a botched suicide or that it is only the latest car company to be attached to such grim fare? By now you’ve seen the spot. Likely only once. For who would want to watch it again?

More than advertising technology, it seems this morbid story is telling us something about ourselves. Something sad. Trying for adult wit -I suppose- what I take away from watching these films is no less than the death of hope. The undertow of despair is unavoidable. Regret permeates. In particular, in the Hyundai commercial, where a man, having survived an attempted suicide, forlornly walks back into his tidy suburban home, shoulders slumped, wearily accepting another day of existence. Maybe he is in a loveless marriage. Perhaps he has lost his job. Was he chronically depressed?

Honestly, it’s not the lack of sensitivity I question. The Hyundai film is quite sensitive. To a fault. By going for complete realism it achieves melancholy resembling an Ingmar Bergman film. And that’s the problem. We are left pondering the human condition. Not the nifty car.

I appreciate, sometimes even adore, dark humor in films and TV. But in advertising? Here it seems, well, just plain wrong. Ultimately, advertising should leave the viewer feeling something positive about what it’s selling. Emphasizing a negative about life is perfectly acceptable when the advertisement provides the solution. Dramatizing a fire to sell insurance for example. But in these spots the solution is unintended, bittersweet at best. Misguided to a fault.

Besides, aren’t cars supposed to bring joy and freedom to Everyman? Not so for these blokes. By choosing their automobiles for coffins these sad sacks have unwittingly made them symbols for all that has gone wrong in their lives.

I have to wonder: After coming up with the concept and its clever irony (forgiven) didn’t the copywriters then realize this deeper, sadder one? We think about our work, don’t we? If not the authors, the wise creative director or planner or account executive (let alone the client) is supposed to. Creative license like this is unacceptable.

I’m not saying death is off limits in a commercial. Or that it can’t be funny. Below is one of the most famous TV commercials of all time. It’s about a car. It’s about death. Yet, it handles both with life-affirming joy. Failing to kill oneself in a car because it has clean emissions does neither.

I really dig this tumblr blog by graphic designer Roxy Radulescu, featuring stills from films and their corresponding color palettes. It’s a creative idea that seemingly has everything. Not only is moviesincolor inspiring from an aesthetic point of view but the concept emanates directly from popular culture so it’ll get talked about and shared.

And not just by movie buffs and art directors. There’s potential utility here as well. I totally see homeowners and designers being inspired by the irresistible source material of their favorite movies. I mean who wouldn’t want a man cave designed around the colors of Scarface or Goodfellas? For chicks, how adorkable to have your bedroom done up a la Moonrise Kingdom?

The possibilities are endless. As are the applications. The only thing missing, frankly, is the big time paint advertiser. Not long ago I worked on the product launch for Valspar paint. We did some pretty cool stuff for them in the digital space. Moviesincolor would have fit perfectly.

Judging from her other blog (RoxyMakesThings), moviesincolor is just one of many concepts percolating in this young designer’s head. Since moving to LA from the “corn field’s of Illinois” Roxy, in her own words, “has managed to be a part of a handful of L.A. bands, work on videos, hold several graphic design jobs, sell my prints, and help friends bring their projects to life.”

Nicely done, Roxy. Here’s hoping moviesincolor brings you some well-deserved attention and many more chances to shine.

Shout out to The Denver Egoist for discovering Roxy’s boss tumblr.

Flipping through magazines the other day, I discovered a new print ad for yet another Anheuser Busch beer product, this one called Black Crown -partly because it is made with caramel malt and partly because, I suppose to the brewery, it sounded cool.

When coming across new ads, I tend to read the body copy and this one was no exception. Take note of the following sentence. “Toasted, chosen and handpicked by the loud the savvy and the famous.” Huh? What the hell does that even mean? On a literal level, the first three verbs confuse because they are identical to language used when describing the process of making beer. Here, however, it means something else, perhaps far worse than brew-making clichés. Finish the line. Take a look at those three adjectives: “loud, savvy and famous.” If that’s not a definition for “douchebag” I don’t know what is.

Ripped body copy not in good taste…

Loud? Are they kidding? Since when is being loud indicative of good quality? And how on earth does it juxtapose with savvy? Oh, I know. When you’re famous. Like the Kardashians.

I hate this copy so much. Not only is it attitudinal and hyperbolic but it flags poseur for both the beer and the drinker. Having worked on advertising for AB and Miller Coors, I know firsthand the client is either oblivious to this vulgarity or, in truth, encourages it. They’ve spent billions of marketing dollars cultivated the poseur alpha male and made beer after beer just for him.

Savvy plan: “Maybe if we’re louder we’ll get famous!”

Here’s my take on what Black Crown is really saying: Dude- If you’re a backward-baseball cap wearing, collar popping white male who thinks he’s a player this is the beer for you! Show you’re frat buds that you’ve most def arrived by paying 75 cents more for a bottle of beer. Black Crown tastes like Guinness, only stupider!

I get it. AB wants guys to think drinking Black Crown is a privilege, like getting into the VIP room at some awful nightclub. Fine. But if loud, savvy and famous is the new definition of quality then we are in big trouble.

Official beer of the VIP lounge!

Like most of you I spent this week considering the horrific events in Boston. We watched the 24/7 news feed. Talked to our co-workers. Lessoned our children. We took part in yet another big, heavy conversation. It’s a sick and sweet thing, observing our nation coming together over something terrible. Alas, it has become all too common.

Or has it?

In reality, these public displays of cowardly violence are fairly infrequent, at least compared to violence in general. At the Boston Marathon a bunch of people were maimed and three people died, including a child. Terrible yes. But this sort of thing happens almost every day in every big city in every country in the world. We barely even notice. Case in point, the day after the Boston tragedy Syria unloaded arsenal on vague revolutionary targets killing dozens of innocents. The story was on page four of my local paper.

What makes the ‘Boston Bombings’ so different? Was it the public stage? The parade of innocent bystanders? The media? Or was it the fact that it occurred in America, where senseless violence isn’t supposed to happen? (Tell that to the parents of Sandy Hook Elementary or moviegoers in Aurora, Colorado.)

Whatever the differences, a brazen act of terrorism has much in common with successful modern marketing, doesn’t it? Not to come off as insensitive, but wasn’t the ‘Boston Bombing’ basically event marketing with a viral component? A flash mob, literally and figuratively.

Marketing…

Terrorism…

The bombers knew the finish line of this iconic race would have countless spectators. With iPhones. That meant not only plenty of victims but even more survivors, who would film, post and Tweet.

The perpetrators are many bad things but they are not arbitrary. They know blowing up innocent people at a major sporting event creates epic, horrifying drama, the kind that trends on Twitter and clogs all other media: locally, nationally and globally.

The concept of killing innocent people is no longer enough. The vile act needs to be integrated with other pieces in order to go viral and give these merchants of evil the awareness they crave.

Too soon for a discussion like this? Perhaps. Or am I late? Consider another perspective from this VP of public relations: http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/op-ed-when-tragedy-strikes-silence-is-golden_b47174